As I said last time, their second-and-third tier characters are getting some interesting relaunches (if they do "The Savage Hawkman" right, that one could be badass) (it probably won't be, but it COULD be).
But the money's not in the second-tier characters, unless lightning strikes and you really nail it. The money's in the big names... and that's where DC has a problem.
First, there will be four Green Lantern titles. Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: The New Guardians, and Red Lanterns. While they're all written by different people, the showrunner here is Geoff Johns, who started writing GL in the mid 2000s and is currently a high corporate officer and Hollywood liaison for DC. His stories are sacrosanct, then, and so the GL relaunch will continue the thread of story elements that started in 2006/2007 with Rage of the Red Lanterns, coming through In Blackest Night and its obvious sequel In Brightest Day, and the War of the Green Lanterns. "New Guardians," for example, has a cast comprised of characters and concepts introduced in Blackest Night, and is helmed by 90s Green Lantern Kyle Rayner. "Corps" features Guy Gardner and John Stewart, who were both Lanterns in the 80s and 90s, though John at least had the visibility of starring in the Justice League cartoon.
I'm not worried about old characters still being used, but it worries me that there's an attempt to continue plot threads, especially plot threads that go back several years and through some pretty heavy continuity-filled storylines (Blackest Night is loaded with old dead DC characters that nobody knows about coming back to life; you sure you want to reference this?). That seems to be completely against the point of the relaunch, but again, it's Geoff Johns, and DC has to keep him happy.
They might get away with it on Green Lantern, but when it comes to Batman, the shit is pounding the fan.
That's Batwing. We'll come back to him.
Back in 2006 or so, Grant Morrison started writing Batman. He had a definite storyline in mind with a full, epic arc. Just to hit the highlights that I'm aware of: he found out he had a son, somewhere in there he became aware of the Batmen of Many Nations (a modern update of a bunch of characters from the 1950s, who are exactly what they sound like, international crimefighters inspired by Batman), was ignobly killed, got lost in time, Dick Grayson became Batman, Bruce's son became Robin, Bruce fought his way back through the timestream and became Batman again but also Dick was still Batman, and Bruce set out across the globe to form Batman Inc. and bring together the Batmen of Many Nations.
Batwing is an African Batman. He's getting his own book, because DC has like two other books with black people in them.
But Grant didn't finish his story before the reboot, it was still going on. So in 2012, Batman Inc. will resume, and Grant will have a big 12-part finale to finish his story. Grant is like Geoff Johns, a sacrosanct member of the writing staff, so he gets to do this. And it's an insane idea, you're hoping to get new readers, and for that you dump them off at the tail end of a six-year storyline?
Of course Grant Morrison deserves it, no writer deserves to have their story cut off. But the truth is that it happens all the time. Cancellations, relaunches, creative team changes, crossover storylines that either interrupt your story or completely throw it to the wolves... it's a part of comic book writing, an endlessly stupid and frustrating part of it, but part of it. Grant's a good writer, but why does he deserve it when all the other writers who are having their books cut off and relaunched don't? Is it really so important that Morrison finish his story when you're trying to attract people who have never read a Batman comic before? Does that make even the slightest bit of sense?
I thought DC was doing something interesting, but it looks like they're just making the same willful mistakes. The Batman line is an obscene eleven books with Batman, Detective Comics, Batman: The Dark Knight, Batman and Robin, Batgirl, Batwoman, Batwing, Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Birds of Prey, Catwoman... and then adding in a twelfth book when Batman Inc. returns next year. Is there even a point for all these books? Batman and Detective Comics are the same exact thing, The Dark Knight was just created as a street-level mystery book to counteract the weirdness of the other books, and Batman and Robin was created as a flagship for Grant Morrison before he left that for Batman Inc. Is there any sense to this line at all?
I try to give DC credit, I try to believe that they're doing something new and exciting that might actually work as a piece of marketing. And then I find out why they say old dogs can't learn new tricks.
And jesus christ, that Batwing costume is fucking hideous.
UPDATE: There's one curious aspect of this relaunch that seems to be getting very little mention at all. With Jim Lee confirmed as the artist on Justice League, Greg Capullo and David Finch both working on Batman books, Tony Daniel on The Demon, and Phillip Tan on Hawkman, there seemed to be a kind of circa-1994 art vibe coming in. Today we got announcements of Brett Booth on Teen Titans and Mr. 90s himself, Rob Liefeld on Hawk and Dove. It's interesting... the early 90s were a sales high point for comics, and the new style of art was a very big part of that (artists were infinitely more popular than writers at the time, as opposed to today). DC's thought process might be that if they duplicate that art style, they might experience a larger sales boom... don't know if they'd be right about that, but there might be some merit to it.
Oh, Rob Liefeld. Your wacky disregard for basic human anatomy warms my heart.
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